Rand Paul: Ted Cruz ‘Qualified’ To Be ‘Prime Minister Of Canada’

GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is tweaking fellow candidate Sen. Ted Cruz over whether the Texan is eligible to be President of the United States. Cruz was born in Canada.

“You know, I think without question he is qualified and would make the cut to be prime minister of Canada, absolutely without question, he is qualified and he meets the qualifications,” Paul said about Cruz during a radio interview on Kilmeade and Friends.

advertisement

Cruz was born in Canada, but his mother was a U.S. citizen. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump was asked about whether or not Cruz’s birthplace would become an issue if Cruz was the Republican nominee in a recent interview with the Washington Post, sparking the speculation.

Paul stressed that he wasn’t “an expert” on the definition of “natural born citizen” according to the Constitution.

“You know, I’m not an expert on the natural-born clause in the Constitution and people have various opinions,” Paul explained. “Some people believe it means you need to be born here, some people think it means you can be born in another country as long as your parents are citizens.”

“And we’ve had some previous cases of it, but I don’t think we’ve ever gone through the court system for the Supreme Court to decide one way or another,” Paul added. “It is interesting, and I think sometimes people point out that it’s a double standard, in the sense that people went out, hot and heavy, including Donald Trump you know, about President Obama when there was really nothing more than conjecture that he wasn’t born in the country. And yet, there hasn’t been really the same outrage at all for some one who actually is born in another country.”

“You know, we live in a really litigious world and it is a concern that people will sue over him not being born in the country, you know, it hadn’t been a big discussion yet and I think this will begin the discussion of it,” Paul said of a court litigating the issue. “I am not enough of a legal scholar to say the court will decide one way or another. In fact, probably nobody knows how the court would decide because it’s never been adjudicated before.”

Buzzfeed notes that in 2013, Paul was more certain of Cruz’s eligibility to run for President of the United States when in an interview with CNN, Paul said, “You won’t find me questioning his eligibility. I decided a long time ago I wouldn’t be a birther. I’m not a birther for Democrats. I’m not a birther for Republicans. I’m staying out of that.”